Particle swarm optimization with Monte-Carlo simulation and hypothesis testing for network reliability problem

The performance of Monte-Carlo Simulation(MCS) is highly related to the number of simulation. This paper introduces a hypothesis testing technique and incorporated into a Particle Swarm Optimization(PSO) based Monte-Carlo Simulation(MCS) algorithm to solve the complex network reliability problem. The function of hypothesis testing technique is to reduce the dispensable simulation in network system reliability estimation. The proposed technique contains three components: hypothesis testing, network reliability calculation and PSO algorithm for finding solutions. The function of hypothesis testing is to abandon unpromising solutions; we use Monte-Carlo simulation to obtain network reliability; since the network reliability problem is NP-hard, PSO algorithm is applied. Since the execution time can be better decreased with the decrease of Confidence level of hypothesis testing in a range, but the solution becomes worse when the confidence level exceed a critical value, the experiment are carried out on different confidence levels for finding the critical value. The experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the computational cost without any loss of its performance under a certain confidence level.